I've taken a while off from submitting articles to increase my sites link popularity (not this site, my other sites). In place of that, I've decided to start submitting my sites to link directories. There are many services out there which say that they do manual submissions and also some software packages to help you out. I of course decided to pay about $100 for a software package. I believed that this would be the right thing to do, considering I have about 20 sites to submit.
I chose SubmitEaze and it seems to work well enough. I can create as many projects as I like and SubmitEaze is pre-populated with a number of directories (likely from DirectoryCritic). SubmitEaze has a drop down for free, paid, reciprocal. SubmitEaze also has the ability to add your own custom directories. I think it would be great if they added several niche lists and also deep link lists. Perhaps someone from SubmitEaze will read this and add it, or I could get off my lazy butt and send them an e-mail.
In addition to using SubmitEaze, I decided to utilize a manual directory submission service that came recommended from a popular seo forum (search in google for seo forum and you'll find it). The service was www.seoster.com. I chose the 500 submissions for $50 package. It took about a week for them to start my submissions, but after that they seemed to do about 100/day. At the end I got a file with the submission list. A lot of the directories send confirmation and/or informational e-mail, so be sure to use an e-mail account that you don't mind some spam in...also, make sure it is an account under the domain you are submitting (or lots of directories won't even look at you). Last of all, be sure and check the e-mails in case they do require confirmation.
So, other than maintaining my sites that's what I've been up to. My AdSense numbers have been growing steadily, but at my current rate I won't be able to retire for another 20-40 years or so. I'm sure if I threw more money at the problem things would move quicker, but what is one to do?
If google ever shows my article links (the ones in the article directories themselves) then perhaps I'll re-visit that strategy, but for now it's link directories, niche directories and a few choice blogs that I post at to build my links.
If I was more focused I'd keep a list of blogs and forums related to my subject matter and make it a habit to post to each of them at least once a day (but only if I had something to say).
